Just Close Your Eyes
by Trillian4210
Summary: The brothers are taught a harsh lesson and April discovers an unsettling truth when Donatello goes missing. From a challenge at the Stealthy Stories site.
1. Preamble

**Just Close Your Eyes**

_A/N: Written for the "Overworked Donnie" Challenge over at Stealthy Stories. Rated for language. _

_Enjoy!_

* * *

"This isn't going to work."

"Sure it is. I saw it on an episode of 'House.'"

April rolled her eyes and adjusted her goggles more securely. "That gives me great confidence."

"Watch and learn," Donatello said quietly, his focus narrowing over his target--in this case, an egg suspended in a cylinder of water, held aloft by prongs that were fitted with mini speakers. In his hand, Donatello held a device fashioned out of one of Michelangelo's old remote-control trucks. Once upon a time, before his little brother grew tired of the truck and sent it careening down a broken sewer pipe never to be seen again, the dial on the remote would have increased the truck's speed. After Donatello's modifications, the dial now increased the level of sound being transmitted from the little speakers that held the egg. Without taking his goggled eyes off the cylinder on the table in front of him, he nodded once to April.

With a dubious shake of her head, April flipped on the CD player. Metallica's "Master of Puppets" began to play through the speakers, though only the defenseless egg could hear it.

Slowly, Donatello began to turn the dial. Nothing happened and nothing continued to happen until he reached four. Just as April, a triumphant smirk on her face, opened her mouth for an "I told you so," the egg cracked.

"Aha!" Donatello exclaimed, watching as little tendrils of yolk drifted out of the cracked shell, polluting the water with a yellow ichor. "Metallica: one. Egg: zero. Now, unlike on the show, _mine's_ not going to explode--"

He set down the remote control but as he did, a finger brushed the dial, sending it to ten. The egg _and_ the cylinder shattered in a spray of water, yolk and glass, smattering he and April with bits of each. They stood side by side in silence for a moment, dripping water and egg innards onto the floor of Donatello's lab.

Finally, he turned to her. "Do I have egg on my face?"

"Yes," she replied, biting back a smile, "literally _and _figuratively."

Donatello smirked and handed her a towel. "You didn't get cut did you?"

April tapped her safety goggles. "Never leave home without them."

"Yeah, me neither," he muttered, taking his own goggles off and retying his red bandana. Slowly, he began to clean up the mess.

"Hey," April said, touching his arm. "It's okay. I've had a dozen experiments explode in my face...mostly literally. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I'm not. I'm fine. I just got clumsy with the remote," Donatello replied, offering a wan smile. "I'm just a little tired, I guess."

"From working on this?"

"Oh no. This was just a little diversion." Donatello carefully scraped the remnants of the glass cylinder into a waste bin. "I've been working on the security system for the lair. It keeps malfunctioning...a lot."

"Sounds fun. And necessary," April said, helping to mop off the table top of watery egg yolk.

"And I promised Mikey I'd fix his computer internet connection so he can keep talking to his online girlfriend."

"Mikey has an online girlfriend?"

Donatello looked at her. "What other kind could he have?"

April coughed and said, "Umm, need parts? For his computer?"

"Thanks, no, I'm covered," Donatello said, as they finished cleaning up. "And I told Leo I'd rig our cell phones to get better reception down here when one of us is topside."

April elbowed him in the ribs. "Uh huh. Anything else? Solving the national debt while you're at it?"

Her humor was evidently lost on him as he replied somberly, "Raphael wrecked his motorcycle again, so I've been making some modifications...specifically to the accelerator. He's going to be pissed when he sees it can no longer go faster than sixty."

"Next time Raphael wrecks his chopper, tell him to fix it himself. Maybe that way he'd learn to be more careful."

"I _wish_ he'd be more careful. My worst nightmare is him dumping that bike and getting hurt. I mean, _really _hurt. The kind of hurt he won't be able to walk away from." Donatello sighed and smiled ruefully. "Besides, if he tried to fix it himself, it'd break down because he didn't do it right, and would likely cause me more trouble in the long run anyway."

April frowned. "It sounds like you''ve got your hands full." She took him by the shoulders and turned him towards her. "Now, listen, I want you to take a break. I mean a _real_ break...one that involves sleep and _not _exploding eggs. You hear me?"

Donatello nodded. "Sure thing, April." Her hands were warm on his shoulders.

April smiled. "Good," she said softly. "I'm going to call you tomorrow to check in on you. And you'd better not answer."

"Okay." She still hadn't moved her hands. "Have a good night, April."

"You too, Donatello."

April smiled at him again--softly, almost shyly. And she still hadn't taken her hands off his shoulders...

A sound came at the door. April flew away from Donatello as though he'd shocked her.

"Oh, sorry," Raphael said. "I was just going to ask Donnie a question but it can wait."

"Oh no, it's fine, really," April said hurriedly. She began gathering her coat and purse. "I was just leaving."

Raphael narrowed his eyes at the two of them. "No need to rush out. I said it can wait."

"No, I should be going, it's late, and some of us need to get some sleep," April said with a small, nervous laugh. "Goodnight guys," she called over her shoulder and before either could reply, she was gone.

Raphael looked at Donatello.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Raph, I'm really tired. What is it?"

Raphael leaned against the work table and casually flipped through some papers. "Fix my bike yet?"

"No. Almost. It'll be done tomorrow. Day after at the most."

Raphael nodded and Donatello was shocked that his brother didn't complain at the delay. In a further mystifying show of affection, Raphael chucked him on the shoulder, _smiled _at him in a knowing manner, and left the room saying, "Get some rest, would you? You look like hell."

Donatello stood for a moment in perplexed silence. _What just happened? Raphael acting strange and April..._

But his tired mind wasn't cooperating enough to sort out his thoughts...or the tangle of emotions that went with them. Getting some rest from all his work sounded like a good idea but there was just so much to _do._ Donatello sighed and sat down. _Maybe a ten minute nap will help,_ he thought, crossing his arms on the table and resting his head against them. _Just ten minutes..._

Donatello's head shot up and he glanced around blearily as the perimeter alarm screamed its tinny, metallic warning. Blinking hard, he turned to the sets of mismatched monitors stacked unevenly against one wall, peering at each of the six screens to find a sign of the intruder that had encroached on their premises. There was none. Another false alarm. He could hear his brothers stirring in other parts of the lair.

"Donatello?"

"It's nothing, Leo," he called back.

"I thought you were going to fix the system!"

"I am!" he returned. Then, quieter, "I am. Nap time's over." He glanced at the clock. He had been asleep for all of three minutes.

Donatello rubbed his eyes once more and then set to work.

* * *

"So then she says, 'Why don't I send you a picture?' And I was like, 'Sure!' And then she writes, 'But you have to send me one of you.' And I was like, 'No prob!' So you know what I did?"

"No."

"I downloaded a picture of Brad Pitt and sent that!"

"Mmm, witty."

"Well, she sure thought it was funny, 'cuz she sent me a picture of Jessica Alba! And I was like, 'Wow, we're so totally hot!'"

Donatello blinked hard and rubbed his arm over his eyes. He had only one more cable to connect but the way Michelangelo had his computer set up--and the fact that his room was drowning in a sea of comic books and candy wrappers--made it difficult to reach. His little brother hovering over him, jabbering away, didn't help.

"But then we were like, 'No really, let's send pics.' And I was like, 'You first,' and she _agreed._ But then the stupid connection went bonkers and I couldn't get it back."

"It's probably because you unplugged the ethernet cord by accident," Donatello muttered. "Probably kicked it in a fit of internet-love joy."

"Huh? The what?"

"Nevermind." Donatello got up off the floor slowly, his knees popping with every movement. "You're all set. Just be more careful next time."

"That was fast. Dude, you rule!" Michelangelo flounced into his chair and turned on his computer. "But you look a little wasted. Take a nap, why dontcha?"

"Uh huh," Donatello said, wading through an ocean of debris to get to the door.

"Hey, you never even asked me what pic I'm going to send _her_!"

"What?"

"I was thinking about that one of us at the farm. You know, in front of that junk heap of a car you and Casey fixed?"

"Sounds good," Donatello said and slouched out of the room.

Michelangelo snorted. "That was a joke!" he called after his brother. "I can't send her that! Duh!" But Donatello's reply was to disappear into the dark hallway. "That dude is losing his sense of humor," Michelangelo said to himsel, then turned his attention to his computer and _KissingAngel_ who was waiting for him.

* * *

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Hey, fell asleep at your table again, eh?"

Donatello blinked and looked around blearily. Leonardo was at the door of his lab, looking sharp and collected. Donatello felt anything but either. He nodded at his brother, rubbing his neck where the muscles were bunched and sore from sleeping pillowed on his arms.

"Sorry to wake you, Don, but I was wondering if you'd had a chance to get to the cell phones. I'm concerned that the reception is getting worse and I wouldn't want anyone to get in a jam because they couldn't reach someone."

Donatello blinked sleepily and nodded. "Sure thing, Leo. It's just..." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'm kinda tired. Maybe after I've had a nap?"

Leonardo bit his lip. "Well, here's the thing: Mike's gone shopping for our dinner and I'm worried because he's topside without a working cellphone. It's just not safe, you know? I mean, it's too late now--he's already left--but I don't want anyone else going out without one. I'd feel better knowing we could get in touch with one another should we run into trouble."

Donatello forced himself to sit up. His head felt like it weighed five metric tons and his eyelids were twice that. But his tired mind made the appropriate computations: Michelangelo was out without a cellphone. If he got into trouble, no one would know it. He--Donatello--had put his brother in danger.

"Sure thing, Leo. I'll get right on it."

Leonardo beamed. "Thanks, Don. I appreciate it."

Donatello stretched his aching muscles and rubbed his eyes for what seemed like the hundreth time that day. With shuffling, stumbling motions, he went to a small side table in his lab where the entrails of four cell phones were spewed, waiting for him to resume the operation that would transplant better receptors into their innards.

"More bars in more places," he muttered, affixing a receptor into Michelangelo's cell phone. It seemed to him that the wiring and screws had shrunk considerably since the last time he had worked on it. He squinted his burning eyes and tried to focus. After several failed attempts, the receptor was in.

"That took much longer than it should," he said. "And I'm talking to myself more than sane people do." He sighed and held his head in his hands. "I'm just so tired," he said into the quiet of his lab. What he didn't say aloud was that, for the first time, he wished that someone besides himself was good at this sort of thing. "I just need a little break." But the other three cell phones weren't going to fix themselves. And Leo was counting on him. All of his brothers were counting on him.

Without another word, Donatello picked up the next cell phone and set to work.

* * *

_Flip, flip, flip, flip...SLAP!_

"Ow! Son of a..." Raphael muttered, rubbing the top of his hand.

"Wuss," Casey smirked.

Raphael eyed him from across the table. They each had a mound of playing cards stacked in front of them, with a smaller pile between them. "Play it that way, eh?"

"Whatever you got," Casey returned.

Raphael flipped a card onto the pile between them. Casey did the same. Over and over they flipped cards face up, each with one eye on the growing stack, one on each other. Finally, Raphael tossed a Jack of diamonds. They both went for the pile but Casey was quicker. He slapped his hand on top first with a triumphant "Ha!" Raphael, with a glint in his eye, was a second slower. But instead of striking with an open palm, he made a fist and brought it down--_hard_--on top of Casey's.

"You dirty bastard!" Casey yelped, rubbing his hand.

Raphael snorted laughter. "Don't forget to take the pile. You won it fair and square."

"Ha ha ha. It's called 'Slap Jack', retard. Not 'Asshole Fist Pounding Jack.'"

Raphael laughed harder. "You kiss your mother with that mouth? Such language! Sounds like someone's been at the Porno Shack recently."

Casey's reply was an unwholesome finger gesture. "Laugh it up, turd bucket. It's your turn to go. And the next time a Jack comes out, you're gonna end up with broken fingers."

Raphael put his hand out, held it perfectly still. "Controlled fear."

"Just go."

The _flip, flip, flip, flip_ resumed.

Unnoticed, Donatello emerged from the hallway. He shuffled across the room, moving more like an old man than a young, martial-arts trained teenager. "Hey, Raph, you said you'd come check the security sensors with me," he said from the front door of the lair, hefting a dark vinyl bag to his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute," Raphael replied, intently watching the cards fall between he and Casey.

"I haven't got a minute," Donatello said. "And you promised."

"Keep your shorts on, Donnie. This game is almost over."

"Hell it is," muttered Casey.

"No, it's not," Donatello answered. "You're obviously playing with at least six decks and you both have equal piles. This game could go on forever. So come on."

Raphael hooted in triumph as Casey tossed down a Jack of hearts. Raphael's hand came down, slapped the pile, and then flew off again as Casey, a wooden baton appearing out of nowhere, whacked the table where his opponent's hand had been a split second before.

"Are you out of your damn mind?" Raphael demanded, though the anger in his voice was tinged--ever so slightly--with laughter. "You trying to get a sai up your ass?"

Casey tilted back in his chair, bellowing with laughter. "You should have seen the look on your ugly mug. Frickin' _priceless_."

Donatello rolled his eyes. "Come on, Raph. You promised."

Raphael, after giving Casey a warning glance, turned around in his chair and looked at his brother. "All right already! Sheesh, I heard you the first eight billion times. I'll be there in a second."

Donatello sighed and tried to think up an appropriate threat that would get his brother's butt out of the chair, but none were coming to his sleep-deprived mind. The best he could come up with was, "I'll tell Splinter" but there was no way he was going to use that old gem. Raphael would never let him live it down if he resorted to _tattling _on him.

"Your turn, dilweed," Raphael was saying to Casey. "One more Jack and then I gotta help Don before he blows a gasket."

"No sais, Raph," Casey warned, watching the turtle's hand creep to his belt. "It's all fun and games until you impale my hand on the damn table."

"Aww, worried you're too slow? Fine, no sai." Raphael cupped a hand to his mouth. "Hey, Mikey, can I borrow one of your 'chucks for a minute?" He and Casey both chuckled and resumed their game. Donatello stood, forgotten, at the door of the lair.

He let the game progess but three Jacks had made their appearance and three piles of cards had been slapped and still no end in sight. Donatello was tempted to whack _both_ their hands with his bo but just then Michelangelo came tearing out of his room.

"Hey, guys! Guess what! _KissingAngel_ just sent me a picture!"

"Who?"

"Mikey's online girlfriend."

"Is she hot?"

Michelangelo's eyes were as wide as pizza pans. "Come and see for yourself. She's wearing a _bikini."_

Raphael and Casey exchanged glances.

"A _thong_ _bikini_._"_

There was a tremendous scraping of chairs and a fluttering of cards and in a second, the room was empty. Donatello rubbed his eyes, hefted his bag over his shoulder and stumped out into the muck of the sewers, alone.

* * *

"Where's Don?" Leonardo asked, glancing around the room. He sat down on the dinner ­­­mats next to Raphael. Across from him, Splinter was sitting placidly while Michelangelo could be heard singing--offkey--in the kitchen, preparing to reveal that night's dinner.

Raphael shrugged. "Out, I guess."

"Don doesn't go 'out'", Leonardo said, frowning.

"I meant, _out fixing stuff_," Raphael snapped. "He said he was going to work on the lair security sensors."

"Were you not supposed to assist him in that endeavor?" Splinter asked quietly.

"Er..technically, yeah. But he left before I was ready so I guess he didn't really need me all that much."

Leonardo snorted. "Nice one, Raph. Anything to get out of helping."

"Bite me."

"Do not start," Splinter said. "I will not have this dinner spoiled by your bickering before it has even begun. You will learn to be respectful to one another if I have to beat it into your thick heads."

"Ooh, Master's Splinter's about to throw down!" Michelangelo exclaimed, coming into the dining area with his arms laden with bowls of food. "You show'em, Master. Give'em what for!"

"Shut up, Mikey," Leonardo and Raphael said--much to their chagrin--at the exact same time.

"Where's Don?" Michelangelo asked, setting down a salad and a bowl of fettucine alfredo.

"That's just what I was wondering," Leonardo said, shooting Raphael a dark look.

"Hey, it ain't my fault he's late to frickin' dinner," Raphael said. "Hell, he's missed more dinners this week than not, anyway. It's not like missing one more is a sign of the apocalypse or something."

"Hmm, you are right," Splinter said. "Donatello has been extremely busy as of late. I am concerned he is not getting the proper nutrition or rest that he needs."

"Yeah, yesterday at sparring, I practically took his head off," Michelangelo said, his mouth stuffed with fettucine noodles. He made a pantomime of the battle, swinging invisible nunchuku over his head. "I was all...and he was like...and then I almost went _whack!_ If he had moved a second later..." He shook his head and assumed a very serious expression...one that was completely ruined by the noodle hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, and a week ago, I came back from patrol really late and the light in his lab was still on," Raphael said. "Actually, it's on almost _every _night I come in from patrol. And I come in _late._"

"He has fallen asleep twice now during meditation time," Splinter mused.

Leonardo frowned. "Yeah, he hasn't looked too good lately. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I saw Donatello _not _looking like he was dead on his feet."

"Yeah, but that's just Donnie. He likes his work."

"I don't know, Mikey, I think he may be working too hard lately," Leonardo said, thinking darkly on his earlier conversation with his brother about the cell phones. "He needs a break."

Splinter rubbed his chin whiskers. "When he comes in this night, please have him come see me," he told his sons. "I would speak to him about this." They nodded in unison and proceeded with their dinner.

The evening hours slipped away. Splinter retreated to his room for the night with his usual cup of green tea. Michelangelo remained glued to his computer where _KissingAngel_ taunted him with more pictures and implored himto meet her. Raphael put in a kung fu movie and promptly fell asleep--his own late hours finally catching up with him. Leonardo became absorbed in his book--the autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai.

Donatello lay unconscious in the sewers to the south of the lair, his blood pooling in the filth, oblivious to a troup of drunken men stomping their way towards him.

* * *

_A/N: This is a three-chapter fic and since the others are done and just awaiting some final touches, updates should come pretty quick. _

_My TMNT fics are going to share a timeline so while you won't need to have read "Self Preservation" to understand this one, references will be made. The fic that will follow up "Just Close Your Eyes" will have its foundations here as well, but again, I want them to serve as standalone stories too. _

_While this isn't strictly a comic book universe, I got my TMNT start reading the original comics. As I'm sure y'all know, the comics were black and white, making the color-coded bandanas the boys wear unnecessary. On covers and in the graphic novels, the bandanas were all red, and so my boys wear red too. I don't have anything against the red, blue, purple or yellow, I just like to kick it old skool. ;) _

_Hope you liked it, and the next chap will be up shortly. _

_Trillian_


	2. Battle

**Battle**

**6 hours previous...**

_A/N: Sorry for the alert spam, but I posted this chapter in a hurry, right before I went out of town for the weekend before it was ready. So I polished it up and am reposting it now. Enjoy!_

Donatello shivered. He had left his jacket on the rack at the lair and it was a cold night for early September. Rain had fallen earlier too, judging by the rivulets of water that leaked from a half a hundred different cracks in the cement ceiling above him and the mini river that flowed at his feet. The cold, slightly slimy, more-than-slightly smelly water came up over his ankles. It splashed and slopped as he walked since he wasn't entirely capable of more than a drunken shuffle.

He stopped and leaned heavily against the wall for a minute, glancing up at the sky through a narrow grate. The clouds were parting, revealing a wan moon hanging limply in the dark. The light it cast was yellowish and grimy and made the dank sewer seem all the more murky and dirty.

"Three down, one to go," he muttered, his voice echoing hollowly down the tunnels around him. He had traversed three of the main arteries that branched off from the lair to inspect the sensors. It was an easy job. What should have taken him an hour at the most had taken closer to three. With a lurch, he pushed himself off the wall and continued shambling down the last tunnel.

The south tunnel was a mess. Broken chunks of cement--detritus from an abandoned reno project on the surface by their look--littered the floor, and cracks snaked like black lightning up the smooth walls. Water leaked from the ceiling and the floor was covered in precisely the kind of filth sewers are known for. Donatello grimaced at the smell, his red-rimmed eyes finding the last sensor set in a crack in right wall. He heaved a sigh and set down the black vinyl bag on a spot that was not covered in clumps of dead leaves and excrement. In the bag were the tools and devices he would need to run a diagnostic on the sensor in this tunnel. The other three had proven sound.

"Just my luck, it's the last one that's busted," he muttered to himself. "And in _this_ tunnel. It couldn't have been the first one, ohh no. Because that would have been too easy."

He was dimly aware he was talking to himself a lot lately, but his exhausted mind seemed to have sprung a leak; any thought that passed through it stumbled its way out of his mouth and into the world, audience or no. That troubled him for a brief moment and he paused in his work, trying to recall any data he could on the subject. His mind, perhaps as a plea for mercy, offered a case study he had once read on sleep-deprived people. The study found that they often compensated for their impairment in other ways. Talking to oneself was a side-effect. Thinking--and _behaving_--as though everything were perfectly all right, was another. The subjects in the study believed their senses were just fine and that they could continue their activities with no detriment of any kind, even though they were impaired...severely.

"That's important to know," Donatello said absently. "I should remember that," he said. He tried to hold onto this thought a little longer but its meaning was slipping out of his exhausted mind like water out of a sieve. "Maybe that's like me," he said aloud. "Maybe I should go...just go and close my eyes..."

Donatello's eyelids drooped and his head started to nod, drawing his chin to his chest. He began to keel to the side when the sound of voices--male voices, and more than one or two--floated down the tunnel toward him on a current of rank, swampy air. With a violent jerk, he snapped away and peered into the blackness of the tunnel. He had long been trained to decipher the distortions that the sewers created. Like the warning on a sideview mirror, objects may be closer than they sound, and Donatello forced his tired mind to determine if those voices were something to worry about.

They weren't his brothers, he knew that immediately, exhausted or no. The voices were loud, raucous, likely belonging to a handful of young men who had had too much to drink, and whose said drinking had convinced them that traipsing around in the stinking sewers of New York on a Friday night would be "fun."

Donatello remained perfectly still, listening. The voices were not getting any clearer; he could decipher no words, and after a minute, they started to fade away altogether. The turtle eased a sigh of relief and set down his bag with renewed determination. The young men likely wouldn't cause any trouble; the sewers were a huge maze of catacombs, of which the turtles' home was a very small part, but...

"Better safe than sorry," Donatello murmured in a much quieter voice, and set to work.

The first device he pulled out of his bag was a receiver. It was similar in appearance to the sensor in that it was a small, black box with a little light in the center of it. Donatello waved his hand in front of the sensor. The little light on the receiver in his hand responded, bathing the dim confines of the tunnel in a soft, blue light.

"That shouldn't happen," Donatello said to no one in particular. "That explains why the damn thing keeps going off."

He muttered a curse and took the sensor out of it's crack at the floor of the tunnel. He would have to recalibrate it so that it was less sensitive. Likely, every rat in the tunnel who passed through its line of fire sent the alarm screaming back in the lair. It was designed to pick up the movements of only creatures larger than a cat. Although stray dogs and cats wandering through the tunnels weren't enough to warrant an "orange alert", homeless people coming _to look_ for their strays were. Rats were supposed to be allowed to pass without fanfare.

"Unless there's lots of'em," Donatello mused, picking at the innards of the sensor. "That means the Rat King and then you've really got a situation on your hands."

The work was hard. Donatello blinked his eyes over and over again, trying to force them to give him a clear picture. But the meager moonlight shining through the grate above him was not enough.

And he had forgotten to bring a flashlight.

"Always be prepared," he muttered and shook his head in frustration. "You'd make a piss-poor Boy Scout, Donatello, my friend." Like the cell phones, the sensor's wiry entrails seemed to have shrunk while his fingers had grown huge, making his attempts to manipulate them clumsy and inept. Under ordinary circumstances, he could've fixed the sensor with his eyes closed, but lately closing his eyes was a luxury he couldn't seem to afford.

Donatello sat down against the wall of the tunnel and rubbed his palms vigorously over his eyes. It didn't help. Neither did a slap or two on the cheeks. An angry notion, alien to his placid demeanor, hinted to him that if he took the accursed sensor and smashed it against the wall, he wouldn't have to finagle with that damnable nest of wires. The notion was a good one, and tempting, but instead of heaving the little box against the rocks, he tried again. Focusing all his concentration, he was able to make the wires do as he commanded. Finally, after what seemed like ages, he closed up the back of the sensor and returned it to its hiding place.

"All right, let's see what's behind door number four." He waved his hand--quickly--in front of the sensor.

Nothing.

"Good."

He leaned over, making the bulk of his body pass through its line of sight. The blue light in the receiver dutifully came on.

"Real good."

Donatello sighed with relief and stood up. He made to retrieve his bag but crouching for so long had taken its toll. The blood rushed to his head, clouding his vision. Instinctively, he tried to right himself but his reflexes were nowhere near as sharp as they ought to have been. His muscles, in a bizarre, disorienting manner, refused to do what he asked them to. Up was down, down was up, and before he could stop himself, Donatello was toppling backwards.

He backpedaled clumsily across the tunnel, his feet sloshing and slapping the sludgy water. His right foot fell on something slick and white he hadn't seen--a package of white powder tucked under a broken hunk of cement. He slipped hard and the back of his right leg struck an outcropping of jagged rock in the decaying sewer. The pain was sharp but not enough to spark Donatello out of his freefall. His head struck the opposite wall of the tunnel and his already impaired vision telescoped rapidly to blackness.

* * *

April O'Neil yawned, closed her magazine--_Science Now_--and set it on the nighstand. Casey was lying beside her, snoring softly. She thought she would turn out her light and join him in sleep but she suddenly felt very awake. She glanced around in the quiet of her apartment; at the window, the bathroom door, her bed and Casey lying in it. _It feels wrong somehow. Like something's missing. No, not missing...out of place. _

These thoughts were not new, but becoming increasingly more frequent. They confused her, kept her awake some nights, and stole little pieces of her contentment whenever they occured to her. She sighed in annoyance for now the thoughts had taken hold and had begun their roundabout dance in her mind. With a muttered curse, she turned out the light and settled herself against her pillow, ready to fight for her sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. This would be one of those nights.

"What is wrong with me?" she whispered to the ceiling. It gave no reply but to reveal to her that it was high time she swept for cobwebs.

April sighed, feeling more awake than ever. Always the scientist, she turned her thoughts and emotions upside down and inside out, trying to pinpoint that nagging, niggling source of unease that pricked her heart everytime Casey moved or breathed or made a sound.

Finally, April gave up. She tossed the covers off and left the bedroom to go pace the small confines of her neat little apartment. She walked a well-worn route, running her hands through her tousle of hair and shaking her head at the silliness of it all. She contemplated giving in completely and putting in a movie when her eyes fell on her cell phone sitting on the coffee table.

April--without thinking--went to it, picked it up, and dialed a number. There was no answer but the message on the voicemail made her smile.

"Good. He's finally getting some rest," she said, and closed up the phone. She yawned, stretched, and shuffled back to her bedroom.

She was asleep even as her head touched the pillow.

Leonardo woke up with a start and looked immediately to the digital clock on his nightstand. Something was wrong with it, though he couldn't think what. Its neat, red digital numbers said that the time was ten minutes after two. Nothing wrong, nothing out of the ordinary. But Leonardo's sleep-fogged mind was blaring an alarm that wouldn't turn off. Then he saw it. The little red circle alit next to the "a.m." It was ten minutes after two _in the morning. _"Donatello hasn't come back," he said into the neat, quiet order of his room, jarring the placid stillness with his fear-tinged voice.

He didn't know how he knew, but he knew the words were true as soon as he uttered them. In a flash, his covers were a heap on the floor and he was flying towards his brother's room, his sleepiness having been consumed in a panic that made him whipshot alert. He flipped on the light in Donatello's room.

The bed was empty.

Moreover, it was unslept in. Donatello hadn't come home.

Leonardo froze. Had it been Raphael's empty room he was staring at, there would be no panic. Raphael was more often than not absent at this hour. But Donatello...Donatello was different. Then Leonardo remembered what Raph had said about Don's lab light being on most nights. He often stayed up late if he an experiment burning through his imagination but tonight felt different. Leonardo broke free of his panic-induced inertia and headed to his brother's lab, but he knew, as if by instinct, that he would find it empty.

He was right.

A thousand benign possibilities as to his brother's whereabouts came to his mind, but Leonardo dismissed them all. Donatello didn't stay out without calling. Donatello didn't go topside without letting someone know about it first. Donatello didn't "lose track of the time"or "forget to check in." He was methodical, practical, logical. You could set your clock by him...

The image of that digital clock coldly declaring the late hour came back to Leonardo and set him in motion. Lightning quick, he dashed through the lair like a big, green Paul Revere, and within moments, the livingroom was filled with pacing, cursing family members.

"Okay, here' s the plan: Mikey, go get a map of the lair and the surrounding tunnels. Don must have one that shows the location of the sensors he went to fix."

"Yeah, unless he took it with him _to fix the sensors_," Raphael snorted, never once ceasing his pacing back and forth along the carpet in front of the television.

Leonardo ignored him. "Mikey, _go. _Check the monitors for him, too."

Michelangelo nodded. "Uh, sure thing, Leo," he said, unable to conceal the shaky tremor in his voice.

"He's probably still in the sewers since his topside gear is still here," Leonardo said, with a nod toward the hat rack where Donatello's jacket and cap were neatly hung.

"Nice job, Sherlock," Raphael muttered. "Any other bright ideas?"

"Raphael, be silent!" Splinter spat, his tone uncharacteristically sharp. "You help no one with your sarcasm."

"Sorry, Master, but I just don't see why we're sitting around yakking. Why don't we just go out and find him, already?"

"We need a plan," Leonardo said. "Donatello needs us to help him, not to run around aimlessly, getting lost and losing time."

"Maybe _you _need a plan, but I got mine. I'm going out to find him."

"Too bad you weren't so eager to help him _when he asked you_." Leonardo's words stopped Raphael cold in his tracks.

"You want a fist in the mouth?"

"_Enough_!"

The power behind Splinter's word was strong enough that both brothers' mouths snapped shut.

"Leonardo is right," the rat said in a quieter tone. "If you know precisely where Donatello went, then it shall be quicker to find him. There is no point in losing time to getting lost...or to arguing."

"We're losing time right now," Raphael muttered, but Splinter let it go as Michelangelo bounded back into the room with a worn piece of paper in his hands.

"I don't think it's the latest map, but it's the only one I could find," he said, handing the paper to Leonardo. "I didn't see anything on the monitors."

"It shows the lair and a half-mile radius of tunnels," Leonardo muttered aloud. "The sensors are a quarter-mile out in each direction." He didn't need to explain further--the brothers knew the surrounding sewer system like the backs of their hands. "Raph, you take the east tunnel; Mikey, you take the south. I'll circle up west and then north. Call in if you find him."

"Call on what? Our cell phones don't work, remember?"

Leonardo bit his lip. "Hold on." He raced into Donatello's lab and there they were, neatly lined up on his work table.

All four of them. A pang of guilt twisted his stomach as he rememberd urging his brother to finish the work. He hadn't seen it then (or had an had ignored it) but now his memory brought forth in perfect clarity the weariness in Donatello; how slumped over and defeated he had looked. _He was asking for some rest, some help and I said no. _With a muttered curse, Leonarod scooped up three of the phones and raced back into the livingroom.

"Here," he said, handing one to Michelangelo and tossing the other to Raphael.

"He fixed them," Michelangelo said, looking forlornly at the phone in his hand.

"Yeah, he did," Leonardo said tersely. "They work now, so _use _them," he ordered with a pointed look at Raphael.

Raphael grunted only and stamped out of the lair. As soon as he reached the tunnel that would take him east, the sounds of his footsteps vanished and he disappeared into the dark.

"We're going to find him, right Leo? I mean, he's going to be okay. He's just fixing stuff, right? It's just that he's been so tired lately..."

"Yeah, he's okay, Mikey. He probably fell asleep in one of the tunnels. Poor guy works too hard, you know?" _And we work him too hard_, he thought but did not say. _I let this happen. I let him down..._

Michelangelo was nodding but Leonardo could see his words offered little reassurance. He watched his little brother take a deep breath and straighten up. A determined glint in his eye replaced his fear and Leonardo couldn't help but be proud. Michelangelo had a big heart but he also knew when it was time to get down to business. Without another word, he slipped--ghost-like quiet--out of the lair and into the south tunnel.

Every fiber in Leonardo's reiterated the fear that Donatello was not, in fact, peacefully sleeping in some dark corner of the sewers, but instead of running out the door, he turned to Master Splinter. Before he could even speak, the old rat raised his hand.

"Blame no one, especially not yourself at this moment. Go. Find him. There will be time enough to discuss how to make things better once he is returned to us."

Leonardo nodded and handed the rat a cellphone. "It's Don's. I'll call you if we find him."

Splinter watched his eldest go, concern in his black eyes for Leonardo's choice of words.

* * *

Michelangelo padded softly down the south tunnel. He hated that particular tunnel--it was no good for skateboarding what with its broken chunks of cement all over the place, and all kinds of nasty filth piled on the floor. Plus, he didn't like the way the wind moaned through the broken pipes sometimes. The wind sounded like ghosts and Michelangelo didn't like ghosts.

Don once told him there was not enough scientific evidence to prove the existence of ghosts but Raph had disagreed. He told Michelangelo that back in the olden days, like around the time of the plague, a guy would go around on a horse cart collecting dead bodies from the neighborhood and then dump the corpses into the south tunnel of the sewer...only not all of them were dead.

"Bring out yer dead!" Raph said the guy would call, ringing a bell to announce his presence. The people would bring out those who had died that week of the plague and toss them in the cart. But if a guy wasn't all dead--maybe really old or something--he might get put on the cart anyway. So the moaning and groaning Mikey heard was not the wind in the pipes, but plague guys who had been dumped in the sewer and were left to eat the corpses of the dead before kicking the bucket themselves.

Parts of the story sounded vaguely familiar to Michelangelo; like from a movie he had seen once, maybe. The fact that Don and Leo were snickering behind their hands was suspicious too, but better to be safe than sorry--he avoided the south tunnel at all costs.

But now, a legion of hugry undead shuffling down that tunnel wouldn't have kept him from trying to find Donatello. It wouldn't even make him pause.

Before Leonardo woke him up, Michelangelo's dreams were unsettling. They started out all right--_really _all right, as a matter of fact since they featured his online girlfriend and her thong bikini. But then they changed, grew dark and confusing. The last one was the strangest. In it, Donatello was in his lab. It was completely dark but for the work light on his table. He was hunched over something that Michelangelo couldn't see from the door.

"Whatcha doin', Don?"

"Working," came the reply. His brother's voice sounded _old_.

"On what?" Michelangelo didn't move from his spot at the door. He didn't want to.

"There's always something to work on, Mikey."

At that, Donatello raised his head and showed Michelangelo his project. But Donatello's hands were empty...and his eyes were closed. He looked positively _creepy. _Michelangelo had woken with a start a split second before Leonardo had bounded into his room and thought he wasn't sure why, he wasn't at all surprised to hear that Donatello hadn't come home yet.

Now, as Michelangelo made his way swiftly yet quietly through the tunnel, the unsettled feeling in his heart grew. Leonardo was a terrible liar; Michelangelo knew he wasn't going to stumble across his brother sleeping peacefully in the tunnel, his head pillowed on his bag.

And he wasn't.

Michelangelo saw the unmistakeable outline of Donatello lying slumped like a ragdoll against one wall of the tunnel. His arms and legs were splayed and his head was at an uncomfortable angle that no one would adopt if he were merely sleeping. The youngest brother was known best for his soft heart and sense of fun, but Michelangelo was as highly trained as the rest of them in his art. Quickly, and with ninja-sharp precision, he assessed the situation.

There were no assailants present nor any sign of battle. He saw no footprints in the muck of the tunnel floor besides his own and Donatello's. But for the _poitpoitpoit _sound of dripping water onto metal, all was quiet. Michelangelo whipped out his cell phone, flipped it to walkie-talkie mode--an innovation of Don's--and hit 'speak.'

"Found him. South tunnel. Come quick."

The replies were immediate.

"Copy that."

"I'm there."

Michelangelo nodded and flipped the phone shut. He swiftly knelt beside Donatello. His fingers felt for a pulse and found it--rapid and uneven.

"Donnie, can you hear me? Can you tell me what happened?" Michelangelo asked. His brother's only response was a croaking moan that scared Michelangelo worse than any ghost story. He had begun to shiver as though freezing cold but his skin was burning hot to the touch. Michelangelo swallowed hard. "Hang in there, okay? The guys are on their way. But I gotta see if you've got broken bones before we move you." Donatello made no reply and Michelangelo set to work.

Starting from his head and working down, Michelangelo laid his hands on his brother. The bump on the back of Donatello's head--wet and sticky with blood--was discovered immediatly and Michelangelo bit his lip, the fear rising in him again. "Wake up, Donnie. Come on, bro, wake up," he said, lightly patting his brother's cheeks. "I know you're tired, but you're not supposed to go to sleep if you've got a concussion, right? You told me that like, a _hundred times."_

But Donatello only moaned again, and shivered more violently, as though he were lying naked in the middle of a snowstorm. Michelangelo glanced down the tunnel. No sign of Leonardo yet. Michelangelo bit his lip. "Okay, okay. That's all right. We'll just keep going. You don't have to talk, just stay with me, okay bro?"

Quickly, he patted down his brother, feeling for the tell-tale heat and swelling that would indicate a broken bone hiding beneath the surface of the skin. Donatello's skin was already alarmingly hot so Michelangelo had to be a little firmer in his search. Plus, his brother was lying in three inches of disgusting filth; so when Michelangelo laid his hand on the gaping gash behind Donatello's right leg, he almost missed it. But Donatello cried out and Michelangelo realized the pool of liquid he was kneeling in was not entirely sewer water.

"Oh jeez, this is bad. Damn, bro, I'm so sorry."

Gingerly, Michelangelo lifted Donatello's leg and peered at the wound. "Ouch. Nasty," he murmured. Wasting no time, he took off his bandana and tied it securely to Donatello's thigh, just above the gash. Immediately, the red cloth turned darker, looking almost black in the dim light. "There ya go. Good as new. Well, almost. You could use a shower, you know. You don't smell so good."

Donatello whimpered and Michelangelo sort of felt like doing the same. He glanced frantically down the tunnels again but still, his brothers weren't there. Then his eyes fell on the white package at Donatello's feet. He picked it up and examined it.

"Whoa. That's a lot of blow. Or something..." He glanced down at his unconscious brother. "This isn't yours, right?" And then he heard the voices.

"Sweet. The calvary's coming, Donnie. Hang in there..." Michelangelo snapped his mouth shut. The voices didn't belong to Leo or Raph. Not at all. They were too loud and there were too many of them...and they were getting closer.

"Come on, Gus, we've been down here for _hours._ Let's call it a night and get the fuck out of here."

A trio of other voices echoed that sentiment and then another, deeper voice said, "Forman said he stashed nearly ten ounces of primo shit somewhere down here and I know we're close. You wanna just walk away from that?"

"Yes."

"It fuckin' _reeks_ down here."

"Pussies. Go ahead. But I'm gonna find the shit, I'm gonna get high as a kite, then I'm gonna sell the rest and all you motherfuckers can just go suck it."

_No arguing with that kind of reasoning, _Michelangelo mused. Apparently the others agreed as their voices dissolved into grumbles of assent...and drew nearer. The ninja turtle could now here their footfalls and see the back-and-forth of a lone flashlight's beam swinging in the tunnel about fifty yards away. Five men were heading straight toward he and Donnie.

Hardly daring to breathe, Michelangelo thought quickly, his hands going instantly to his nunchuku. The men were likely a bunch of scumbags but they didn't deserve to die. But they also couldn't be allowed to wander around freely on turtle property, nor come across Donatello lying helpless and unconscious. Without giving himself a chance to change his mind, Michelangelo dropped into a roll and covered himself in slimy, stinking sewage and then crouched at the corner where the south tunnel was bisected by another. The men got closer and he could see them much more clearly now.

"Yep. Definitely of the scumbag variety," he breathed. "They're want that little bag of white stuff you found, Donnie." His hands clutched his nunchuku tightly and every muscle in his body coiled, ready to spring. "Just a little closer, fellas. Wouldn't want you to miss the show..." The men were almost on him now, just ten feet away, and then...

"Gaaaarrrrghghhggghg!!" Michelangelo croaked, springing onto the path in front of the men, arms raised, filth and sewage dripping off him, his nunchuku a spinning blur.

The effect was rather spectacular. Five pale, grizzled faces at once became masks of abject terror. The flashlight hit the ground with a crack after being dropped from nerveless fingers. The beam flickered crazily for a moment and then was gone, leaving them all in almost total darkness. The screams of the men--much higher pitched than Michelangelo would have believed--tore through the tunnels, followed by a scrambling and scraping of heels as they, in a group, turned to flee.

"Gaaarrgg! I'm gonna tear off your flesh and eat your bones!! Arrggghhhgg!" Michelangelo lurched after them, listening with amusement to the sounds of retreat.

"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..."

"I _told you, _man. I _told_ you!"

"What the hell was _that_?"

Michelangelo smiled, watching them push and stumble their way down the tunnel. "_That_ was the swamp creature from hell," he said softly, "and don't you forget it."

He listened for a moment as their footsteps grew fainter and then he heard a hair-raising, "Blaaarrrgg!" followed by another chorus of rather girly screams. Michelangelo chuckled. "Sounds like Raph liked my idea." His smile faded as Donatello moaned again.

"April..."

Michelangelo knelt beside his brother. "Yeah, bro. It's okay. We're gonna help you. April will help you."

A moment later Leonardo was there, kneeling beside them. "How is he?" Leonardo laid his hand to Donatello's forehead.

"Not great," Michelangelo said. "He's got a bad fever, a cut leg, and he cracked his head pretty good."

"From those guys?"

"No, I found him like this."

"Who were they?"

"Druggies," Michelangelo said jerking his thumb at the white plastic package at Donatello's feet. "They're looking for their baking power."

Leonardo made a disgusted face. "All right, let's get him home."

"Where's Raph?"

"He's making sure those guys find their way out of the sewers _completely_." Leonardo glanced at his brother up and down. "Good idea you had. No casualties, no discovery. Excellent."

Michelangelo nodded. Normally, such praise from Leo would make him swell with pride, but not now. "We should have..._done_ something sooner, right? I mean, about Don?"

Leonardo pressed his lips together, his expression tight and unreadable. "Come on, get his legs. Hurry." Gently, he took hold of Donatello by the shoulders, Michelangelo took him by the legs, both brothers mindful of his injuries. Quickly and smoothly, they hefted the unconscious turtle and started for the lair.

Ten paces later, Leonardo stopped suddenly.

"What--?"

"Hsst!"

Michelangelo snapped his mouth shut for now he heard it too--the unmistakeable sounds of battle were echoing down the tunnel towards them. "It's cool, Raph can handle'em," he whispered after a moment. "Those idiots don't know what they're up against."

Leonardo seemed inclined to agree when a gunshot ripped through the air, sending rippling, thunderous noise along the pathways of the sewer, followed by silence. The turtles exchanged alarmed glances over Donatello's body hanging limply between them.

"Oh, Raph," Michelangelo whispered.

Leonardo sprang into action. "Put him down here...gently...that's it." He whipped out his cell phone and pushed 'speak'. "Master Splinter, we're in the south tunnel. We've got Don but we have to leave him; Raph's in trouble. Do you read?"

There was a silence that seemed to last an eternity and then, "Go. I will be there."

Leonardo snapped his phone shut and drew his katana. Michelangelo, still dripping with sewer refuse, whipped out his nunchucks. Now, a confusing array of sounds were traveling down the tunnel at them. It sounded as though the battle had begun anew, and then another ear-splitting gunshot tore through the air.

"Stay close and low," Leonardo hissed to Michelangelo as the two of them slipped down the tunnel, silent and fast. "Always look for cover and use your shell if things get worse."

Michelangelo didn't want to think about how things could get worse. He'd never been in a gun battle before...either Leo had or he'd just studied up on the subject. Michelangelo hoped it was the latter.

The sewer was dark; the turtles were guided by sound only and the effect was frightening. Michelangelo could just imagine a bullet, invisible and impossibly fast, zipping out of the dark and striking he or Leonardo. His vivid imagination conjured terrible visions of Leonardo going down with a grunt and a thud, or his own plastron erupting in a little explosion of blood and bone. He kept moving but he found his mouth had gone completely dry and his heart was pounding much harder than it had for any battle he had ever participated in before. _How did it get this bad? _the thought echoed over and over in his mind until they were near enough to the battle and then he forced himself to focus.

Twenty feet ahead, the dim tunnel revealed an intersection. Shouts and threats were being exchanged. With a sigh of relief, Michelangelo could hear his brother's trademark taunting coming from somewhere up ahead.

"You gonna hide behind that gun all night? Come on...get on out here and let's play."

"Fuck you, man. I don't know who you're running with, but hand over the stash..._now._"

Michelangelo and Leonardo arrived to find Raphael crouched behind a large chunk of concrete, his opponents slinking down the sides of the tunnel ahead.

"What's the story?" Leonardo whispered.

Raphael grimaced. "Five assholes, one gun," he whispered back. "I'm trying to keep them from splitting up and spreading out. Any ideas?"

Rapidly, Leonardo said, "They're after drugs. Cocaine or heroin. Don't know which. Don found a white package, size of a small pillow."

Raphael nodded and called out, "Yeah, I got your stash. Would be too bad if it got a little wet, now, wouldn't it?"

The five men, all bunched together behind the one wielding the gun, muttered among themselves. Their leader brandished the gun, it was a small silver flash in the dimness of the tunnel. "I'll kill you, whoever the fuck you are, if you don't hand over that shit _now."_

"Oops!" Raphael called. "I think I made a little hole in the bag. Is that bad?"

The reply was a frustrated exclamation and not one, but two thunderous gun shots. Twin flashes of blinding light illuminated the tunnel for a brief second and a piece of cement six inches above Raphael's head exploded, raining jagged shrapnel over them. The men advanced.

"You missed, Jesse James, but I think you made the hole in the bag bigger," Raphael called. "Look, it's snowing!" To his brothers, Raphael whispered, "Those were the closest shots yet. I can't keep taunting these morons. How about a plan?"

The turtles backed down the tunnel, keeping behind broken hunks of cement and falled pieces of tunnel. Leonardo took a quick glance at the intruders and found that, for the moment, he could see them quite clearly. Light from a grate above them illuminated the group briefly as they continued their march down the tunnel. The turtle saw the glint of knives and heard the soft clinking of chains and realized that while the others weren't weilding guns, each had a weapon of their own.

"There's a grate above them," Leonardo whispered. "Get cover around that corner," he said with a nod at a tunnel ten feet behind them that ran perpendicular to their own. "Mikey and I will get topside and drop down on them from behind."

Raphael nodded. "All right, but hurry. These guys are stupid but it won't take them long to get tired of this."

As silent as ghosts, his brothers vanished.

Raphael backed around the corner, into the tunnel Leonardo had indicated, keeping low.

"I'm done fucking around with you, man," called the man with the gun. "Just hand over the shit and I promise I won't blow a hole in your fucking head. Your balls...maybe." A round of laughter echoed through the tunnels.

"Now there's an offer I can't refuse," Raphael muttered to himself quietly, not wanting to give his position away. Slowly, he peered around the corner. The men, moving slowly and cautiously in the dark, continued towards the intersection of his tunnel and theirs, each one scanning the dimness intently for some sign of their strange tormentor.

The group drew closer and Raphael wondered what he was supposed to do if they came far enough into the intersection and saw him. But then, with a widening smile of anticipation, Raphael watched as two dark shapes dropped silently down behind the men. "Playtime's over, scuzzbuckets." He gathered a handful of rocks into his fist, waiting until his brothers were closer. Leonardo and Michelangelo didn't attack but, operating on the strange yet perfect connection the turtles shared, waited until Raphael made his move...and when he did, the tunnel erupted into a blaze of motion.

Raphael hurled his handful of rocks across the tunnel where they crackled over the wall. The group of men, in perfect, predictable unison, turned toward the sound; the leader firing yet another shot. Another ear-splitting bang, another flash of blinding light momentarily incapacitated the men... but not the turtles.

Even as he threw the rocks, Raphael's other hand was reaching for his sai. He withdrew the weapon and flung it like a knife-thrower at a carnival. End over end, the sai whipped through the air and struck the gunslinger's outstretched hand. Bones shattered, the gun fell into the sludge below, and an agonized scream ripped through the sewers. Raphael wasted no time, but grabbed his other sai and dashed out from his hiding place, into the fray.

As soon as the sounds of rocks skittering against the wall took the mens' attention, Leonardo and Michelangelo--now coated in a dried shell of sewer muck--sprang into action. The two men at the back of the pack went down easily, neither of them having seen or heard their attackers until blows to the head knocked them unconscious. They dropped like puppets whose strings have been cut, landing with a thud onto the ground. The next two men were a tad sharper.

"Behind!" one shouted, and they both turned, brandishing their weapons. The light was meager but enough for each to square off with their opponents. Michelangelo, his nunchucks whipping the air around him, faced the knife wielder, Leonardo had the one with the chain.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the knife man.

"Your worst nightmare, dude," Michelangelo replied, trying to affect ominous tones but failing miserably. His nunchuku were far more articulate. The man's knife jabbed here and there, but Michelangelo danced easily out of reach and brought his own weapons whipping down.

Michelangelo was so fast and his strikes so rapid, the man must have thought he were fighting six opponents instead of one. In a series of perfectly precise strikes, the turtle knocked the knife from his hand, crushed the hand that held it, then cracked against the man's skull. He fell to the ground in a heap beside his already bested comrades.

Leonardo, meanwhile, was having some trouble with his own chain-wielding opponent...some.

The man had managed to keep Leonardo away with some admirably agile whips of his chain. But his success was largely due to the fact that Leonardo was trying to beat him without actually killing him. Had the drug addict been a Foot, he would already be cut to ribbons.

The man struck out again and again, with Leonardo knocking aside the chain with a katana. "Come on, freak," the man taunted. "I don't got all day." He struck out with his chain again.

"No, you don't," Leonardo said, defending the strike with the flat of his katana. Then, with a deft twist of his wrist, he wrapped the chain around his sword and yanked the man forward. The druggie crashed into Leonardo's plastron and was, for a brief moment, face to face with the turtle. His red-rimmed, watery eyes widened in disbelief and fear. His jaw, covered in a three-day growth of stubble, worked slowly, moving up and down like a fish. "Wha...wha...?"

Leonardo flashed a devious grin his brothers would not have recognized had they seen it. He let the man ogle him for a second longer than was safe, knowing it was a stupid thing to do but feeling strangely good for doing it anyway. "Goodnight," he said when the man's eyes began to _really_ focus, and he brought the hilt of his katana down on his head. The staring eyes rolled back in their sockets and he slumped to the ground.

While his brothers were taking care of the lackeys, Raphael was busy with the gunslinger. Despite a shattered wrist and three broken fingers, the man realized that his gun was his best hope. Grunting with pain, he flew forward, good hand outstretched, to where the gun lay in the muck, some five feet from him. Raphael tackled him just as the man's hand wrapped around the weapon.

Maybe Raphael thought the man was overmatched and so didn't move as fast as he ought. Or maybe the man was faster and more agile than the turtle gave him credit for. Or maybe desperation made him lucky because, moving like an eel, the man wrested himself out of Raphael's grasp, rolled on his back, aimed the gun square in Raphael's face and fired.

_Click._

The gun was empty.

"Or maybe I counted and knew you were out of bullets, asshole."

The man's face contorted in fear. Raphael smiled. He raised his fist and then brought it down again and the gunslinger knew nothing but blackness.

Leonardo sheathed his katana and surveyed the scene. "Raph and Mike, clean up the mess. I'll go with Splinter and get Donatello home."

Raphael looked inclined to argue but Leonardo was already gone.

"Sure, sure, leave us with the fun stuff," Raphael muttered. He glanced around at the five unconscious men and sighed. "All right, let's get to it, Mikey. Mikey?"

Michelangelo was sitting on his heels, holding his head in his hands and shaking it back and forth.

"Hey, man. You okay?" He laid his hand on his brother's shoulder and was astonished when Michelangelo knocked it away.

"What the hell, Raph?" Michelangelo demanded, getting in his brother's face. "I saw it! I saw you and that guy with the gun! You could have been killed!"

"Whoa, take it easy, Mikey," Raphael said, holding up his hands. "I knew he was out of bullets..."

"Yeah, but _I didn't!_" Michelangelo cried, shoving Raphael to the ground. He stood over his astonished brother, breathing hard. Raphael, his eyes wide, could only stare.

There was a silence so deep, even the constant dripping of water seemed to quiet. After a moment, Michelangelo shook his head, looking around the sewers, his eyes wet. "You okay?" he asked gruffly.

Raphael nodded.

Michelangelo looked down at him, held out his hand. Raphael took it and let himself be pulled up.

"Sorry, Mike."

His little brother looked away. Finally, he nodded, wiped his hand over his eyes and said, "Let's get these guys out of here."

"Yeah, okay."

And for the next twenty minutes, they removed the intruders from their home in perfect tandem, and perfect silence.

* * *

Officer O'Malley thought he had seen everything in his twenty-six years with the NYPD. "But this takes the cake and the bakery too," he murmured, standing in the glare of his cruiser's headlights.

Five young men in filthy, stinking clothes, lay unconscious in a heap in the alley of Bleeker and Twenty-First**. **They each bore injuries consistent with streetfighting--broken hands and cracked skulls. The fact that they were neatly trussed and waiting for the police after an anonymous tip was called in, was not so bizarre.

What made Office O'Malley scratch his balding head and stay his hand as he wrote out the report was the fact that the five young men were powdered like donuts in what was likely over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of heroin.


	3. Lessons Learned

**Lessons Learned**

April was roused from her sleep by the far-off sound of her cell phone chirping from the livingroom. She woke with a start and glanced at the bedside clock. It was well after three in the morning and a cold stone of fear settled into the pit of her stomach. She had received her share of three-a.m. phone calls, none of them good.

"You gonna answer that?" Casey mumbled, his face half-buried in his pillow. "It's been going off for ages."

"Why didn' t you wake me?" April demanded. She didn't wait for an answer but dashed out of bed. The phone had stopped ringing and then started again when she grabbed it. She glanced at the number before flipping it open.

"Leo, what is it?"

"It's Donatello. He's in a bad way. We need your help."

The stony fear in her gut grew a thousand times heavier, stealing her breath and making her heart thud dully in her chest. "What happened?"

"He's sick. He's burning up. And he's lost a lot of blood. I can sew up his leg but its infected, there's fever..." There was a short pause and then, almost angrily, "Just tell me what to do."

April forced herself to focus. "All right, listen. Put him in a tub of lukewarm water. _Not cold_, just tepid. You don't want to shock his system further but you've got to bring that fever down."

"Okay." There was a pause where April could hear Leonardo barking her orders to the others. "What else? What about his fever? Can you bring some medicine from your lab?"

The fear in Leonardo's voice made April's heart ache. He sounded so _young_. "Yes, of course. I'll go there now."

"Raph's already on his way to get you. We've been calling..."

"Oh, Leo, I'm sorry." April could now hear a not-so-gentle tapping at her bedroom window. "He's here. I'll be there soon."

"Thanks, April."

April raced back into the bedroom where she could see the hulking form a turtle out on the fire escape. Casey tossed off the covers and went to let him in. "What's going on?" he asked, struggling to lift the window. "Why's Raph here?"

"It's one of the guys. He's sick," April said, hauling on a pair of jeans and a New York Rangers sweatshirt Raphael had given her as a birthday present one year.

"Who?"

"Uh...it's...well, it's Donatello."

Casey grunted, still straining with the window. "Gee, are you _sure_?"

"I'm just...in a hurry," April said, tugging on her sneakers. "What the hell's taking so long with the window?" she snapped.

"I'm gonna guess that it's stuck," Casey muttered. He gave one last strained pull and the window flew up. Raphael climbed in.

"Take your time, why dontcha? Only half the city got a look at me," he griped to Casey and then turned to April. "You ready?"

"Yeah, just let me get my keys."

"_I'm_ driving."

"You mean on your bike?"

"No, my Rolls Royce. Yeah, my bike. Let's _go._"

April nodded and steeled herself. She had been a passenger on Raphael's motorcycle once before..._once._

"Don's really sick, eh?" Casey asked, and for some reason April found the concern in his eyes completely irritating. "I'll go with you. We can take the van..."

"No!" April exclaimed, drawing stares from both of them. "The van is too slow. Plus, I...I think you should stay here in case we need you."

"Uh huh," Casey said slowly. "I'll stay _here_ in case you need me _there._"

April straightened and grabbed her purse off the chair by the window. "Yes, exactly. If we need something topside, I'll call you. It's better that way." She turned to Raphael. "I'm ready."

The turtle looked between her and Casey with narrowed eyes, nodded and climbed back out of the window. "Meetcha downstairs. Later, Casey."

Casey shrugged. "All right, I can tell when I'm not wanted," he said and climbed back into bed. "Let me know if Don's all right, will ya?"

April forced a small, tight smile. "Yes, of course," she said, and tore out of the apartment as though it were on fire.

* * *

April told Raphael his motorcycle wouldn't go faster than sixty but he didn't believe it until he tried to push it to seventy on New York's nearly deserted, three-in-the-morning streets. He cursed under his breath as the bike hit its limit on the straightaways and stayed there. April, clinging to his back for dear life, thanked God and Donatello that it would go no faster. Her lab was at least ten minutes away. They arrived in five.

"There's night security," she told Raphael, jumping off the back and onto blessed solid ground. She whipped off her helmet. "Maybe you should wait here..."

Raphael's eyes were scanning the building. "See that office with the balcony?" He pointed to a window three stories up. "Can you get in there?"

"Yes."

"Good. Meet you in three minutes."

It seemed to April that all she did was blink and Raphael was gone.

Night security didn't ask any questions; many employees burned the midnight oil, working late on rush projects, or losing track of the time while getting caught up in something new and potentially groundbreaking. April was at the third floor office--one that belonged to a senior project manager, hence the view--in under three minutes. Raphael was already waiting for her.

"You could've just waited outside," April said after she let him in. She flipped on the computer on the project manager's desk. She left the lights off so the room's only illumination was the computer monitor coming to life and the dim light of the city filtering in from the enormous windows. "Might've been safer."

"Waiting woulda made me crazy," the turtle replied. He watched her at the desk, a scowl growing on his features. "What are you doing? Let's get to the medicine already."

"The pharmacy is huge, Raph," April said, her eyes on the screen. "I don't know the names of any antibiotics and it would take hours to dig through the cabinets and find something that might work." She could hear Raphael grind his teeth. "I know, I want to get to Donatello as soon as possible too. Believe me, I do."

The computer was asking for an access code. She punched in her own and sighed with relief when the computer let her in. Quickly, she went to the pharmaceutical files and began her search. Raphael paced like a caged animal around the desk. April glanced up at him. After several false starts in which her mouth opened and closed like a fish, she finally managed, "So...I heard from Mikey that you had a girlfriend."

Raphael jolted to a stop. "Oh, yeah? When did he tell you that?"

"Uh, a few weeks ago. He happened to mention something..."

"And you're talkin' about it now because...?"

April shrugged. "Just making conversation." She cleared her throat. "Is it true?"

"I guess. Mikey has a big mouth." He looked at her pointedly. "Why?"

"Sorry, I know it's none of my business," April said, flinching at the hard stare Raphael was laying on her. "I guess I was just...curious." The computer was asking for a narrower search and she concentrated on her task.

"Curious, eh?" Raphael said, crossing his arms over his plastron.

"Yes, Raph, curious," April snapped. "You're my friend--I _think--_and I want to know what's going on with you."

"Uh huh." Raphael was giving her a look that made her feel completely transparent.

"Okay, nevermind," April said tightly. "Forget I brought it up." There was a silence broken only by the sound of the computer printing out the names of eighteen different antibiotics the lab was currently in possession of. April looked them over and shook her head. "God, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know which of these is best, or if he needs something else, or..." her words ended in a sigh. She shook her head. "All right, let's go. He needs our help, not me standing around wasting time..."

"_I_ should have helped him," Raphael said suddenly, the hard edge to his voice dulled. "This wouldn't have happened if I had gone with him to fix those stupid sensors."

"He just got sick, Raph. That's all."

"No, you didn't see him. He was so damn tired and worn out. He got really frickin' overworked and he hurt himself and I was the one who said I'd help him and I didn't. I played that stupid card game instead and now he's..."

April had never heard Raphael sound as he did just then--standing quietly in the dark, the tough exterior made soft by remorse. "He's going to be fine, Raph. Really. I'm not going to let anything happen to him. I promise you. I...I just _won't_."

The turtle looked at her then, a peculiar expression on his face. "Yeah, because he's your friend too, right?"

April nodded. "Yes," she whispered. "He's my friend."

"Is that all?"

The question made her throat go dry. "Umm...what?" she managed.

Raphael studied her for a moment more and then said, "Nevermind. Let's go. He's waiting."

The main hallways of the lab were rigged with security cameras. It was decided Raphael would go back and wait for her at the motorcycle after all while April went to the pharmacy for the medicine. She raced down the hallways, mindful that she had taken too much time and cursing herself for letting Raphael get suspicious. Even as she dug through cabinets for the antibiotics and some topical ointment for Donatello's leg injury, she found herself turning their conversation over in her mind. _He knows, he knows, he knows..._she thought again and again, and then, _He knows what? _But that was a question she wasn't willing to answer so she shut down that train of thought and concentrated on the business at hand. She signed out for the supremely expensive medicines (and decided to worry about explanations later), and hurried to the street. Raphael had the motocycle revved and waiting.

April wordlessly took the passenger helmet he held out to her, figuring the best kind of damage control was to say nothing at all. She climbed on the back of the motorcycle, steeling herself for the ride to come, but suddenly Raphael shocked the cool and casual facade she had been trying to adopt right off her.

Keeping his back to her, his eyes straight ahead, he said, "Her name was Jaime and the reason we broke up was because I wasn't _presentable _enough to the friends and neighbors, if you catch my drift . But I guess you can't 'break up' with someone if you were never really together, right?" he asked, the bitterness heavy in his voice. "We hung out. Yeah, we hung out and talked and that's the whole damn story. But here's the real deal, April. As good as it was to be with her and have some laughs and all that, I sometimes wish I'd never met her, 'cause it's too damn hard living with a gigantic maybe all the time." He twisted around to look at her intently. "After awhile, it starts to eat away at you. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, Raphael. I do," April said. She realized her facade was useless; Raphael wasn't stupid and there was a strange sort of relief in putting a name to the confusing emotions she'd been having as of late. "I don't want to hurt him."

"I know."

"But I'm not...I'm not ready. I just..." April sighed and shook her head. "You won't say anything, will you?"

Raphael revved the bike and kicked it into gear. "Not a chance. But not for your sake. For his."

The motorcycle shot away from the curb like a bullet from a gun. April closed her eyes, rested her head against Raphael's shell, and for the entire hair-raising ride back to the lair, she held onto him a little tighter than she needed to.

* * *

April hadn't known what to expect when she arrived at the lair. For Donatello to be sick, yes, but she thought she would give him a shot for that and some ointment for the cut on his leg, and that would be it. She hadn't expected for things to be as bad as they were...or for how the sight of him, lying prone on the worn living room couch would turn her blood to ice and make her heart feel as though it were a lead bell, tolling ominously in her chest.

Donatello was caught, writhing, in the grip of a terrible fever. He lay sprawled on the couch, surrounded by his brothers and sensei, shivering and moaning in a state of frightening delirium. The turtles had already bathed him as she had instructed, and cleaned up the gash behind his right leg, both to little effect. The fever hadn't abated and the wound oozed yellow pus between the neat, tight stitches Leonardo had expertly crafted. She swallowed hard and knelt beside Donatello, pressing two fingers against his throat. His skin nearly burned her and his pulse was racing.

"Oh, Don," she murmured quietly. Aloud she said, "His heart's galloping. Someone get me an ice pack." Raphael disappeared into the kitchen. "What the hell happened?" she demanded of the others.

Michelangelo--fresh from the speedy shower Leonardo had forced him to take--stepped forward. "We found him knocked out in the south tunnel," he said in a small voice. "It's pretty gross down there. Is that why he's sick?"

"I don't know. How long was he down there?"

Leonardo and Michelangelo exchanged glances.

"What?"

"We're not sure," Leonardo said, his voice low and unreadable. "Hours, maybe. He'd been gone since before dinner tonight."

"And no one thought to look for him sooner?" she snapped, making Michelangelo flinch. "I'm sorry, it's not your fault. He went to fix the security system, didn't he?" she asked, gently patting Donatello's forehead with a damp cloth.

"How did you know?"

"He told me all the work he had lined up. I told him to rest, but I guess he didn't listen."

"He's gonna be okay, isn't he April?" Michelangelo asked in a small, forlorn voice as Raphael returned from the kitchen and handed April an icepack.

"I'm working on it, Mikey," she said.

"What about medicine?"

"I have to get his pulse down first, Leo. The ice should kick in the diver's reflex and slow his heart," she said. Quickly, April pressed the icepack to Donatello's face with one hand and checked his pulse with the other. Her fingers at his throat registered that his heart rate was slowing from its alarming, rabbity thumping to a slower, albeit still rapid pace. "It's already working." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Master Splinter, take this please." She handed the icepack to the rat who resumed dabbing his son's face with it while April dug into her purse. She pulled out two vacu-sealed packages of six syringes, each filled with a pale yellow liquid. She tore open the plastic of one package with her teeth, pulled out a needle, snapped her fingers at it and turned to her patient. Donatello's convulsive shivering made her catch her breath and Michelangelo, hovering over the back of the couch, looked like he might burst into tears at any moment. _And if he loses it, I'm going to lose it. Give him something to do._ "Mikey, hold his arm for me."

Immediately, Michelangelo did as he was told, holding his brother's twitching arm for April's needle. "Hold on, bro. April's gonna give you something to make you feel better. You're gonna be just fine."

April blinked hard and depressed the needle into a vein on the inside of Donatello's elbow. He moaned as the antibiotics flooded his bloodstream, snaking a burning pathway through his veins.

"I'll give him another in four hours, and another after that," April said. "Let's look at that cut now."

Michelangelo gently lifted his brother's leg so that April could carefully dab the swollen tissue with antibiotic ointment. Her fingers lingered over the strong muscle of his calf as she cleaned the wound. _My God, you're pathetic, _she scolded herself silently. When she had finished, she sat back on her heels and waited for the medicine to take effect.

Time seemed to crawl by. The ice in the bag Splinter held to his son's forehead and cheeks melted away and needed to be replaced. The old rat spoke soothingly in Donatello's ear, urging him softly to win his battle and rejoin them. Raphael resumed his pacing as he had at April's lab and punctuated the relative quiet with muttered curses. Michelangelo _did_ start to cry, though he did his best to pretend like he wasn't, and Leonardo stood as still as a statue, staring at his stricken brother, saying nothing, his eyes stony and unreadable. April chewed her lip and tried to tell herself that there wasn't as much at stake here as there was. But when Donatello finally opened his eyes, hers filled with tears and the relief that washed over was undeniably stronger than she could have imagined it to be.

He looked blearily around at the faces hovering over him, his eyes half-mast and red-rimmed. His body had ceased its terrible convulsing and a sweat had broken out on his forehead--releasing the the worst of the fever that had burned through him. He licked parched lips and said in a voice that was hardly more than a croak, "C-can I have...some w-water...please...?"

Michelangelo vanished into the kitchen and returned again, sloshing water over the carpet as he handed an over-flowing cup to Splinter. The sensei held his son's still feverish head and helped him to drink.

"Rest now, my son. You have earned it," Splinter told him softly.

Donatello sighed with relief and his eyes were closing again, this time in sleep...but not before they meet April's.

"Hi," he breathed weakly, a small smile spreading on his face.

"Hi," April said, returning his smile with a tremulous one of her own. "Sleep now, okay?"

Donatello nodded once and then drifted off, still wearing that little grin.

The tension that had sucked the air out of the lair was released and everyone breathed easily. Michelangelo, tears streaming freely down his cheeks now, hugged April. Leonardo gave her a small bow of respect and Splinter took her hand in his gnarled one and thanked her in a gruff voice.

She didn't dare look at Raphael.

* * *

The hour grew later...or earlier as the night became day. Topside, the sun was rising, filtering its wan, watery light between the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Below, in the sewers, Splinter lit his candles, filling his chambers with warm, yellow light. He beckoned to his sons.

"Sit, now, before me."

The three turtles obeyed. The flickering candlelight revealed that each wore similiar expressions of remorse and guilt.

"Donatello is better now, and will recover with no lasting effects. The time for regret has passed," the old rat said, his voice gentle. "The time to learn has come to take its place, and even I am not exempt from this lesson. We _all_ have strayed from the ways of honor and duty in that we have neglected to treat Donatello with both. He is a cherished member of our family and is blessed with many valuable gifts, but his generous spirit and strong work ethic should never be taken for granted again."

The turtles nodded in unison.

"He is not to be disturbed for _any reason_ until he has recuperated," Splinter continued, "and even then he is not to be overwhelmed with our needs. Nor should he be permitted to overwhelm himself. Donatello has an inquisitive, energetic spirit. He is easily lured by the promises of discovery and invention, often to his own detriment. It is our responsibility not only to temper our demands of him, but to help him temper the demands he makes of himself. Do you understand, my sons?"

"Yep," Michelangelo said brightly. "Don't bother the dude with too much stuff, and don't let too much stuff bother him."

"Oh, man," Raphael said, rolling his eyes. "I hope you put that in the Splinter-to-Mikey/Mikey-to-Splinter dictionary."

"It's okay, Raph," Michelangelo said, grinning ear to ear. "I know you need help with the big words. That's what I'm here for."

Raphael slugged his little brother lightly in the arm and Michelangelo laughed. Leonardo looked away. "Are we dismissed, Master?" he asked.

Splinter nodded. "I trust you each will learn from this incident, as I have myself. We shall go forward, being ever vigilant and mindful of the needs of each other, yes?"

Three muttered assents.

"Good. Then I suggest you all meditate on the events of last night for clarity and perspective."

The turtles got to their feet. "I'm going to go meditate my face onto my pillow," Michelangelo muttered under his breath to Raphael.

"I'm with you."

They laughed while Leonardo felt his hands clench into fists.

"Leonardo, a moment."

Leonardo turned around slowly as the others shuffled out. "Yes, Master?"

"Do not now do what I suspect you will do."

"What's that, Master?"

"Go easy on them. Or on Donatello in particular."

_Go easy on them? I can't even bear to look at them, let alone give orders,_ Leonardo thought bitterly. _Master Splinter, can you not see my failure?_

"They need your leadership and drive as much as they need their leisure," the rat was saying. "Balance is what is required, not an extreme in either direction."

Leonardo's face was tight, his voice terse. "How does one achieve that, Master?"

"Practice and experience. You have accomplished much more than you give yourself credit for." Splinter smiled. "Donatello is not the only one who works so hard." His smile faded as he studied his eldest son. "Is there something else troubling you, Leonardo? You wear the face of one who is carrying a great burden in your soul. Tell me, so that I may help ease it."

"It's nothing, Master," Leonardo said. "I am just very tired is all."

Splinter stroked his chin whiskers. "You were never a great liar, my son. In my estimation, it is one of your most prized characteristics."

Leonardo looked to the floor. Every particle in his being wished to kneel before his master and father and tell him everything..._But I have done that in the past and still, these mistakes are made. _He straightened and met his master's eye. "Thank you, Master Spinter, but I think this is one time in which I had better figure things out on my own."

Splinter regarded him for a moment and then said, "As you wish, my son. But know that I am here should you require me."

Leonardo bowed and went out.

Donatello was lying on the couch, sleeping deeply and without fever or chills. April lay curled up on the floor next to him. The others had gone to bed.

Leonardo watched the gentle rise and fall of his brother's chest and he shook his head. Splinter's words may have comforted Mike and Raph, but he felt no relief. He could see things clearer now, and the clarity was as sharp as a ­tanto knife cutting into his heart. _It is obvious, _he thought bitterly, _that each crisis solved is one that I, as their leader, should have prevented in the first place._

"I keep failing," he murmured aloud into the quiet of the early morning. "Maybe it would be better.." He let his words trail off, swallowed them and let them roil in his gut as went to his room. His body was tired but Leonardo lay on his bed, his hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

He stayed that way for a long, long time.

* * *

April woke with a start and blinked her eyes, trying to get her bearings. It took a moment to realize she had been sleeping on the livingroom floor in the turtles' lair, Donatello sleeping peacefully on the couch beside her. In the windowless sewer home, she had no idea the time, but it felt like early morning. She pillowed her cheek on her hand on the couch, watching Donatello sleep. This close to him, she could see the details of his skin, the pale green of it, the texture that was smoother than she would have thought. He had a small scar under his jaw too; a little slash where some weapon wielded by some enemy had somehow breached his defenses and touched him. _Why haven't I see that before? _she wondered and then realized she had never been this close to him, lying beside him as he slept, alone.

April took Donatello's hand in her own, studied it, squeezed it gently, and pressed it to her cheek.

She had had little sleep the night before herself, and her tired mind began to make blurry little offerings and suggestions that made her skin tingle... Other mornings in which she woke up with him beside her instead of Casey. Making hot coffee for him, poring over the lastest science mags and journals with him, bickering pleasantly over some theory or another with him. She imagined conversations in which she didn't have to censor her vocabulary because her listener didn't understand the words. She envisioned coming home from work and explaining how some experiment went wrong (or right) and getting feedback, suggestions, and ideas instead of perplexed expressions and pretended interest that masked boredom. She could see renting movies that didn't have monsters or explosions or car chases in them and televisions that weren't monopolized by hockey games and wrestling matches and monster truck rallies...And April imagined that it might not be so strange or weird if the green, three-fingered hand she held were to touch her, and that there might be a kind of bliss waiting when the location of every scar on his body was no longer a mystery to her.

With these thoughts and imaginations drifting pleasantly in her mind, April smiled and closed her eyes and lay her head beside his on the couch, sharing Donatello's breath and clutching tightly to his hand...

"It's late. Casey'll be worried."

April's head shot up and she let go Donatello's hand as though it were a hot poker. Raphael was leaning against the kitchen doorway, looking at her intently. Again, the feeling that he was looking right through her came over her and this time there was no attendant feeling of relief. The crazy, frenetic night had ended and the solid reality of morning had arrived with a vengeance. Her warm daydreams were doused by Raphael's words as though they were a bucket of ice water. She glanced at her watch and gasped.

"Yeah, I think I heard your cell phone go off too," Raphael said.

April nodded. "I should...uh, I should call him."

"Not sounding like that, you shouldn't," Raphael said. He pulled from his belt his own cell phone and dialed a number. "Yo, Case-man. It's Raph...Yeah, she's here. Donatello had kind of a rough night and she fell asleep on the couch...No, he's good now but it was late and we asked her to stay here until morning just in case...Yeah, bad fever and infection or something, but he'll be fine...Yep...Okay, late." Raphael closed up the cell phone with a snap that nearly made April jump.

"He's your friend," she said quietly.

"Yeah, and Don's my brother."

April nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Raphael gave her a hard look which softened when his gaze moved to Donatello lying peacefully asleep, and then retreated to his room.

April looked at Donatello's sleeping face beside her through a blur of tears. "No," she said softly, "I won't."

* * *

**Epilogue**

**3 Days Later**...

"How do you feel?" Leonardo asked, pulling up a chair to his brother's bed.

"Pretty good," Donatello replied. "You know, I was so tired and thought all I wanted was to sleep, but now I keep thinking about all the work I still have to do."

"Well, don't. We have strict orders to give you some rest, and to make sure you give yourself some too."

"I see," Donatello said. "I appreciate that." He smiled. "And does that bucket of water have something to do with your orders?" he asked with a nod toward the tin pail beside his bedroom door.

"That's insurance."

Donatello laughed but it faded quickly when his brother didn't join in. "You seem like you could use some more sleep yourself. Everything all right?"

Leonardo sighed. "Yeah, Don. It's just...we owe you an apology. _I _owe you an apology..."

"No, you don't--"

Leonardo held up his hand. "Yes, I do. I shouldn't have pushed you about the cell phones."

"Not a big deal."

"Maybe not by itself but just..." Leonardo struggled to find the words. "I shouldn't have pushed you but moreover, I should have seen you were on the edge. But I didn't."

"It's okay, Leo," Donatello said quietly. "There's a lot of things I should have done differently. Don't take so much on and you won't feel so bad."

"But see, that's just it," Leonardo said, rising and pacing the room. "I was so busy trying to do the right thing, and be a good leader, and prevent trouble and so I didn't see it staring me right in the face. I don't know, Don. I sometimes think I'm not cut out for this."

"Leo--"

"You almost _died_," Leonardo said. "And for what? Because I thought the damn cell phones just _had_ to be fixed."

Donatello sat up against his pillows. "Okay, first of all, sit down. You're making me tired just looking at you." He watched as his brother slumped back into the chair beside his bed. "Secondly, I know perfectly well how to stand up for myself and I didn't. You're my brother and I love you, but I don't live and die by your word. And thirdly, _while_ I don't live and die by your word, I respect it and obey it, because you don't ever ask us to do things that are illogical or unfair, even when we bitch and complain and give you a hard time. The cell phones needed to be fixed for the precise reasons you said they did. The fact that I hadn't slept in five days doesn't change that and certainly isn't your fault." He reached out and took his brother by the arm. "You're our leader, Leo, because you're the best one of us. But no matter how good you are, we're going to screw up now and then. And that's what I did. I screwed up. It's not your fault what happened to me but the reason you feel bad about it is _because_ you're our leader and _because_ you're the best one of us."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? Do you think Mikey is sitting in his room, agonizing over our futures and giving himself ulcers plotting and planning ways to keep us all safe? Or Raph? I know I don't." Donatello grinned and chucked Leonardo on the arm. "The doubt and worry that's making you think you're not qualified for the job are the exact reasons why you are. Okay?"

Leonardo said nothing. The love he felt for his brother made his chest tight, and he realized in that moment how important Donatello was to him, how much he needed him and relied on his intellligence and kindness and keen perceptions... _I'm not the best one of us, _he thought, _you are, Donnie. I came so close to losing you, and for what? _The danger Donatello had been in over something so simple and so preventable haunted his soul and no amount of kind words was going to banish that sense of failure. The earnest way in which Donatello was looking at him, the very fact that Donatello was alive and well and sitting there, saying those things to him only magnified the feeling, making him feel worse.

_But don't burden him with that. He doesn't deserve it. _Leonardo forced a smile and said, "Okay."

Donatello beamed and then yawned. He settled himself against his pillows. "You know, I might just get used to this."

Leonardo made to reply when a small, muffled comotion could be heard going on outside Donatello's closed door. Leonardo held up his hand for silence and they both listened to the whispered exchange.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Damn, Raph. Scare a guy half to death."

"You were going to go in Don's room, weren't you?"

"No way! I was...uh... I forgot something and..."

"Don't you get it, Mikey? Do you even remember what happened?"

"Yeah, I do. It's just..."

"It's just what?"

"The cable's out."

There was a pause. In the room, Donatello clapped a hand over his mouth. Leonardo rolled his eyes.

"It is?"

"It is, and there's a National Lampoon's marathon starting in _twenty minutes_."

"Oh."

Leonardo shook his head. Donatello was shaking with stifled laughter.

"Yeah. First _Vacation_, then _European Vacation_ and then _Christmas Vacation..._"

"They're showing _Christmas_?"

"Yeah, I know!"

"I love that flick. So underrated."

"Totally."

Pause.

Leonardo, with a sigh, rose from his chair and went to the door. "I told you this would come in handy," he whispered, taking up the water bucket.

Donatello choked back his laughter. "I stand corrected."

Leonardo stood to the side of the door, ready to unleash his weapon. Slowly, quietly, tentatively, the door opened.

"Um...Donnie?"

END

* * *

_A/N :Thanks to all have read and reviewed this fic. I haven't had time to do review replies, but I'll try to get to any left on this last chapter. Thanks again! I enjoy writing in this fandom and your support is greatly appreciated. :) _


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